On Friday organisers behind the event unveiled their official web site — EurovisionAsia.tv — along with a slick promo video that melds footage from Eurovision (fans will recognise Jamala, Måns Zelmerlöw and Sanja Vucic, among others) with imagery from Asia. This is some fusion cuisine that we are ready to devour!

“We are taking the biggest live televised music show – Eurovision – to the biggest music audience in the world,” organisers write on their web site. “Countries from the Asia-Pacific region will be able to compete in their own version of the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time.”

“Each country will showcase their songwriting and performing talent to Asia and the world and compete to be crowned the winner of the first ever Eurovision Asia Song Contest.”

A blue and purple caption explains that the “Eurovision Asia Song Contest will closely resemble the Eurovision Song Contest”.

Among them, we expect to see the likes of Japan, the second biggest music market in the world after the United States, and South Korea, which has exported its unique brand of pop music, affectionately dubbed K-pop, all over the world. Australia, Vietnam, Thailand — we are ready to feel your sound!

Why isn’t “Eurovision Asia” just “Asiavision”?

In the aftermath of the reveal, Eurovision fans have been asking an understandable question: Why not just call it “Asiavision”?

The problem is that The Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union — the region’s equivalent to the European Broadcasting Union — runs a news service called Asiavision.

It’s a well-established entity — launched in 1984 — that operates in more than 30 countries, supplying news to networks including CCTV in China, ABS-CBN in the Philippines and VTV in Vietnam.

Who is organising Eurovision Asia?

Australia’s Blink TV — a comedy, entertainment and music production company — is one of the key stakeholders behind the competition.

It has produced a variety of acclaimed programming, from quiz shows to long-form comedy series, and has worked with media brands including the UK’s Channel 4, Sweden’s SVT and Denmark’s DR. Kylie Minogue, Robbie Williams, Tina Arena — they’ve all worked creatively with Blink.

But you guys will know the outfit best for their work at Eurovision, which has resulted in three Top 10 finishes in as many tries, including a jury win for Dami Im back in 2016. They recently produced the Eurovision Top 40 Songs special for SBS Australia.

“Our big vision is to bring the Eurovision brand to Asia, with the support of SBS and the EBU,” Blink TV’s Paul Clarke said over the summer, after securing major investment from Roadshow Films. “Roadshow has a strong track record of successfully releasing entertainment projects through Northern Asia.”

You may recognise Paul from the Eurovision green room, where he sat alongside the likes of Dami Im.

Eurovision Asia Song Contest

SBS has also been in talks with broadcasters in China, South Korea and Japan. The talks revealed a series of obstacles, including political tensions between the region’s three big music markets. Chinese law actually prohibits the broadcast or streaming of South Korean pop music and entertainment. That bold move came in response to South Korea’s deployment of THAAD — the United States’ Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missile system.

The host city and country for the event have not yet been decided, despite earlier plans for Australia to host the inaugural edition. China was subsequently revealed as the host of the first edition, though it seems plans have changed. Clarke revealed in an interview that he was in talks with Hong Kong, Sydney and Singapore to host the show.

Are you excited about the Eurovision Asia Song Contest? Any acts or countries you’re dying to see compete? Let us know in the comments box below!

160 Comments

RalphAugust 31, 2017 @ 8:55 am

I thought OUR SONG would be the Eurovision of Asia. Until this news props up. Herregud! I dont like the name of the contest Eurovision Asia that even includes the non-Asian in the contest. Here we go again! I defy Australia and those Asian countries (i.e. Azerbaijan) participating the Eurovison every year. Now? Eurovison Asia which includes the Oceanian countries? Hello?

With all the talk about Middle East participating in the contest it has me thinking that this will be good for the Middle East! I predict that if some of those countries participate it will open up the Middle East to many new things and new ideas! I could be wrong but I think it could be incredible if they participated 🙂

Now I’m just waiting for Afrovision and Amerivision (North and South + Island countries) to happen!!

Been following ESC for ages now and I can’t wait to see this. I hope my home county Philippines will join. Philippines has abundance of great singers and there’s no doubt Filipino artists can sing live come competition night! ?

I hope Australia will host it first. They’ve been watching Eurovision for decades now so they know what makes it a great show. No offense to South Korea but their ABU TV Festival was boring..! would rather watch a Kpop music program honestly.

If Asiavision were to happen,this competition would be better suited for Turkey and Lebanon. Turkey in EASC won’t have to worry about automatic qualifying big a Big 5, at least for the first year. As for Lebanon, their artists will get a chance to shine without Israel in the competition.

The countries eligible for Eurovision Asia span 11 time zones – almost half the world! For example, when it’s 11pm in Auckland, it’s 3pm in Dubai. So there’s no way that the contest would work as a live broadcast.

They’d probably have to use some sort of voting system like what JESC does, with juries and online pre-votes.

I’m so interested with how this will work. There’s a lot of chatter about K-pop, but obviously there’s no much more to the Asia-Pacific region than pop from South Korean. Hopefully the show will expose audiences to different genres of music.

I’m not confident that those Middle-Eastern countries will participate. Maybe Turkey and Lebanon, but other countries like UAE and Qatar won’t show the whole contest to the public (at least not “everything”).

Yeah I wonder how this is gonna work with the timezone differences. Asia is just so big and vast there’s Middle East, South-East, Eastern mainland and Oceania(AUS & NZ). I hope the nearby Pacific Island countries will compete as well like Fiji, Samoa and New Guinea so I can hear some tropical inspired music.

I feel like it’ll be broadcast live when it’s 8-9PM in the Singapore time zone as 90% of the participants will live there. I can’t see the Arab countries participating: too conservative. Televoting is ESSENTIAL, otherwise the contest will never take off. The public wants to be involved.

If this contest were to materialise, there is no way that the Middle East, South or even Central Asia would be allowed to participate- especially as the first group can make the case for ESC participation. It seems like it would be just be for East/South East Asian countries. Otherwise the political chaos of having these countries participate would make Ukraine and Russia look like Greece and Cyprus.

I’ve been really into Mongolian pop music. They have an extremely interesting and also diverse pop scene. “Sarnaas zuugdsen ohin” by Kiwi is probably my favorite song ever from Mongolia. 🙂https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clSSAeJUqeQ

I hope this doesn’t kick Australia out of the regular Eurovision Song Contest. I’m also hoping that the minimum age for the Asian version is 16 like the regular Eurovision. Not only that, but do you know that Japanese group EXILE? One of their members, Atsushi Sat?, is currently on vacation in North America, trying to find ways for EXILE to become known worldwide. Atsushi’s one the front singers of EXILE, along with Takahiro Tasaki. Atsushi is set to return to EXILE in January 2018, so this would give him and his duet buddy Takahiro to record their entry in hopes of a good result. Seriously, Atsushi and Takahiro both have very good singing voices, so they could bring Japan to victory! Hey, that’s the name of one of EXILE’s songs, “Victory”. 😀

Oh, sorry!
I also want to mention the situation in the middle east, to which many of you refer in the comments. There’s even more tension in the region, some countries are at war there.
If it’s Eurovision Asia it can’t be only the East part of Asia and Australia? You can’t have only China, Japan, Thailand and some other countries of the region.

It’s so exciting!
I’d love to watch artists from Asia, the music they have there, discover singers! It will be a whole different and unique thing!

However, I’m sceptical and I have some questions:
1) Will Australia participate to Eurovision or go to Eurovision in Asia? Obviously it can’t be in both contests. It may not be in Asia, but it’s close to Asia, it’s near the region.

2) Is a contest like this possible? I don’t know how it is going to work in terms of the relationship among the countries. For example “Chinese law actually prohibits the broadcast or streaming of South Korean pop music and entertainment.” or generally the tensions in the region. How easy will be to have such a contest there? They will probalby have a “Russia and Ukraine” problem every now and then.

2. Well, If Armenia and Azerbaijan managed, I believe China and South Korea can participate since the relationship between these two are far more positive.

I think this “Asianvision” won’t be like Eurovision. There won’t be much interaction between the participants before the contest. Also, the competition will probably be much tougher (If the idea works, ofc).
Politics could also get much more involved, like with the ongoing “South China Sea situation”.

I don’t really like this Idea… It’s like a copy of the Eurovision Song Contest, especially when it is called “Eurovision Asia”. I would hate it , if this all became a world contest…
Over 60 years of tradition must stay like ist is … Thats my oppinion.

Y E S ugh finally!!!!!!! ik this is like the first time I’ve ever been happy about australia on this site I am so ready, so hyped, so here for this

one of the best things about eurovision is that the national selection processes introduce you to a lot of cool but mostly unknown artists that would be nearly impossible to find otherwise (like alva, gabi toth, panivalkova, liis lemsalu, amina sewali, daniel levi etc. etc.) … now imagine a japanese, hk, singaporean, or even a saudi national final and all of the hidden talent there oh my lordddd I am so ready to get woke

btw escextra claims there is also an Afrimusic competition planned with multiple national selections y’all should nancy drew that and maybe write something

okay i did some sleuthing and it looks excitinggggg like artists from 13 countries have already registered, there are pretty big celebrities like Ameyaw Debrah behind it, and the production company (Vertical Limit) that’s in charge of the South African Music Awards and the African Fashion International is going to be involved somehow

Leave China out, they are thorn in everyone’s side.the fact that they don’t even have a venue yet is problematic, blink TV does not have the money for this and without the money it won’t happen. It will not work because unlike Europe political tensions in this part of the world are worse, can you imagine China not winning and losing to Japan etc.. World War 3 would happen, also the music is is not transportable. I will believe it when I see it.

Honestly, I think people are getting so caught up with the semantics of the name. ‘Eurovision’ does indeed have the prefix ‘Euro’ coming from ‘Europe’, but I feel that the term ‘Eurovision’ has transcended its etymological meaning and now has a significance of its own. To me, ‘Eurovision’ doesn’t mean ‘European Vision’, but rather ‘international song contest of wonder, joy, and occasionally sass’.

Well…actually “Eurovision” doesn’t even refer to the song contest exclusively – it was/is the broadcast network that carried the show to the whole continent, and there is much more to it than just the annual Eurovision Song Contest. If you were watching the recent World Athletic Championships from London, you would have seen the Eurovision logo all along the trackside, for example.

If this Asia contest is carried by the Eurovision network, then the title makes sense.

When the talk about an Asiavision Song Contest started, it was speculated that the winning country would receive a guest slot in the ESC, so maybe this will be Australia’s qualifying ticket from now on.

Oh dear, we don’t know if we ever gonna see that day. TVRI never updated their program since the 70s lol BUT, no worries. RCTI, Metro TV, MNCTV are also full members of the Asia-Pasific Broadcasting union..So i hope one of them would wanna go forward and send a participant!

So, first of all: They are certainly not going with the brand name “Asiavision” ? I have to admit that I’ve kind of already gotten used to it already :/ Honestly, it would be a much more suitable name than EUROvision Asia.

Second: I believe we can all agree that South Korea will pretty much be Asia’s Sweden in this competition. Considering the incredible success and fame K-Pop idols experience all over Asia, I see no chance for the rest of the acts to keep up with them (if South Korea decides to go with K-Pop idols, of course).

As much as I love Jamala and Salvador, enough is enough. Next year we need a summer hit otherwise Eurovision Asia will be above Eurovision. Imagine Psy-‘Gangnam Style’, Asia will crush us if we don’t wake up from this melancholia (1944…Amar pelos dois).

You’re actually implying the asian music scene is only about things like PSY and summer hit type of songs lol as an asian you’re sooo clueless, we love ballads and love to sing them, and kpop can have ballads too. Do some research about asian music scene before spitting nonsense.

You can only be crushed if you sing hit dance songs… ? you know nothing about good music. I’m actually laughing because you’re so scared XD i didnt know some europeans had such low self esteem. My gosh, go to the club and put britney spears on, weirdo.

sympathy votes wont make a song win(Poland 2015, hello?), as much as some people are still butthurt about their acts not winning. As long as people keep voting for their neighbors, there’s no way for ESC to expand.

Fortunately this year, a song with longevity won for the first time in years, not clown acts that are used to winning thanks to their neighbors voting for each other, but no one whines about that…hypocrites.

I would hate that. It would seem like the actual Eurovision was only a heat, and that would take away from the winner’s victory, especially if it went on to lose at a “WorldVision”…I hope that is not part of whatever grand scheme the EBU are cooking up.

It’s Asia Pacific so the Middle East and South Asia will be left out- good for Israel (which as an Asian nation would be a choice to compete than Australia). Honestly, so many of these countries are conflict prone and have such big human rights issues that organising a fair and open competition would be hard (Europe just about manages it due to more developed human rights laws, and even then it gets messy). I’m all for any country doing ESC, but just expand one successful contest rather than try to create what is likely to be a inferior one.

China’s participation means Taiwan cannot compete. China’s territorial disputes over various islands could rule out Japan and The Philippines, for example.

People will cry in any case: if you extend eurovision people will cry that it’s not about europe anymore and if you create a spinoff people cry about other reasons such the ones you stated. Let them try, they’re professionnals, they are integrating political issues in this, and if it doesn’t work out, then it will disappear, that’s it no reason to freak out.

korea and japan have no interest in competing with europe, they have their own market which sells way more than famous american singers around the world and have concerts sold out in europe and america, i’m talking about kpop and jpop. It’s all about money and views and they know they dont need this show to have more success, IN FACT itd be a waste of money and creation of drama. No way they’re gonna put their energy on this imitation show

Well:
1) This contest is not made for europeans first but for asians, so as long as they manage to reach the asian market it’s not a problem. If China likes it, imagine the amount of available viewers.
2) Joke acts appeared only when the televote only rule appeared. And they started disappearing as soon as a jury was introduced. So no, for like 40 years the contest was joke act free, then 10 bad joke years and then again it’s becomeing serious since 2010. If they start with a jury immediately, then there will be no joke acts.

I am a bit sceptical though, I don’t think that Europe would want to watch this, or maybe it will not even be broadcast in Europe. I feel like Asian music is only big market because there are so many people living in Asia haha (I can be wrong though). Also, it took Europe about 60 years (up until 2015) to get rid of the joke acts during and make the final a credible song contest, and even though Japan, Korea, Australia, Philippines, China and Indonesia will send a banger, I feel like there is going to be plenty of senseless songs and prformances to try to earn attention for some countries, pretty muh like what ukraine did with Verka or what Montenegro tried to do with Slavko. Or imagine a contest with the majority of the acts being Moldova 2010, like seriously, No

korea and japan have no interest in competing with europe, they have their own market which sells way more than many american singers around the world and have concerts sold out in europe and america, i’m talking about kpop and jpop. no way they’re gonna put their energy on this imitation show

I’m so excited for this, JPop is my favourite genre of music so I’m praying Japan will compete. I love Kpop too so hopefully South Korea will join in. But if Australia are competing, does that mean they’ll leave the normal Eurovision?

No words so far if Indonesia will participate. The Eurovision site states that we as fans must bring the countries to participate! I believe all members of Asia-Pasific Broadcasting Union would be invited (in Indo it will be TVRI, Metro TV, MNCTV, RCTI, so far i think) So we must make them know that Indonesia has to participate!
Ayo Indonesia!

I hope it’s a success but I don’t know if you can transplant a history built over decades that’s uniquely European into the Asian market, it’ll be interesting to see how the rules differ and how the two contests interact

as an asian person, this is the most exciting thing I’ve heard since the new doctor(a). there are some question though. will australia leave the europe eurovision for the asia one? will the winner of this eurovision join the europe one to compete of just do a junior eurovision ‘hi hello goodbye’? what song will the Philippines choose?

Yes! Thank god It is finally happening. It will be great to expand such a contest abroad to such a massive demographic. Also maybe this will shut the haters that always complain about Australia. While I personally don’t mind their participation it will probably be for the best that Australia remains on the Asia contest only, as somewhat of the OG/leader or role model.

I am so ready for this. Like I have been waiting for this contest for the last two years when the rumors started to go around that this was going to possibly be happening one day. I am just hoping that all the participating countries keep their unique sense of music with the contest and don’t all go for something that sounds less like their own sensor of music production. I am really looking forward to the competition… I just wish it wasn’t called Eurovision Asia…. Maybe Asiavision would have been something better title wise.

“It will never have the magical atmosphere of the real Eurovision Song Contest”? It’s not trying to be the “real” Eurovision Song Contest. It’s trying to be the real Eurovision Asia Song Contest. Different spice, different flavours and I am going to eat!

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